BRUSSELS — Right-wing and Euroskeptic parties are set to surge in the next European election at the expense of centrist parties, exclusive polling analysis by POLITICO’s Research and Analysis Division shows.
If the elections were held today, the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) would become the third-biggest group in the European Parliament — tied with the centrist Renew — with 89 seats.
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That would represent a massive 23-seat gain from the 2019 elections for the sometime-Euroskeptic ECR — home of Poland’s ruling nationalist Law and Justice party — with most of the surge coming from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy.
Similarly, the far-right Identity and Democracy (ID) group would make sizable gains, winning 77 seats — a 15-seat rise driven by the Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) recent surge in the polls.
The anticipated rightward swing reflects a broader trend across national elections in Europe, where voters in countries such as Italy, Finland and Greece have increasingly elevated more conservative and hard-right parties.
That said, POLITICO’s analysis shows that the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) would retain its spot as the Parliament’s largest group, despite a predicted 12-seat loss taking it down to 165 seats.
The center-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) would even gain two seats to preserve its spot as Parliament’s No. 2 group, with 145 seats. Renew would drop 12 seats to match ECR in the third slot, the analysis shows.
That means the traditional grand coalition of the EPP, S&D and Renew, which spans the center left to center right, would keep its clear majority over a potential new right-leaning alliance of EPP, ECR and Renew.
Recently, however, the EPP has shown a willingness to partner with ECR, allying with the group to oppose Green Deal legislation.
The election’s biggest losers would be the Greens, which would keep only 48 seats, a loss of 24 spots, while the Left group would gain eight seats but remain the smallest group in Parliament with 45 seats.
Europeans will head to the polls from June 6-9 next year to select the 705 MEPs who represent them in Brussels. The number of MEPs is set to increase to 720 for the 2024 elections but, as the changes still need to be formally approved by the European Council and Parliament itself, the polling estimates are based on a 705-seat scenario.
These seat projections are based on national voting intention polls aggregated in POLITICO’s Poll of Polls, taking into account each country’s current system to allocate Parliament seats.
POLITICO’s Research and Analysis Division also consulted with experts to assign new unaffiliated European lawmakers to their likely groupings.